The ongoing Government foolishness surrounding the future of the Hobsonville Air Force base in West Auckland get worse and worse. Hobsonville is located on a peninsula in the Upper Watemata Harbour as seen in this old photo.
The base, which has deep water access, is surrounded by the suburbs of Hobsonville and West harbour; both up market areas with homes ranging from $400,000 to several million dollars.
The RNZAF has all but left the base and has declared the land surplus. The marine industry and Waitakere City have expressed an interest in establishing a marine cluster in the area. The Labour Government initially liked this idea and allowed one company to get its hands on 4 hectares on which a large shed has already been built. When questions arose about how this came about, government did an about turn and are now hell bent on finding another use for the land, so long as Bill Lloyd of Sovereign Yachts doesn't get any more land.
So, the Labour Government, through Housing New Zealand (HNZ) and it's commercial subsidiary the Hobsonville Land Company, has taken the land under the rules for disposal of surplus crown land. The plan is to build 3,000 high density homes on the remaining 197 hectares. This sounds fine until you find out that they will be in 4 story high rises and that 500 will be rented to HNZ tenants and another 500 will be made available as "affordable housing" to first home buyers. The remaining 2,000 will be sold on the open market.
The last bit of prime land on the water in Auckland, and Labour wants to build high density slums on it. This just beggars belief.
At a meeting of 600 - 800 concerned residents and property owners last night (2 November 2006), Minister of Housing, Chris Carter said that there was no way to stop thos development. Local MP, National's John Key, advised that once elected, National would stop the development and sell the land to fund HNZs activities elsewhere. Mayor, Bob Harvey, who was previously in support of the marine cluster and high value housing on Hobsonville, has fallen in behind Labour and will support the crazy scheme.
What are the problems?:
1. 3,000 homes is about 12,000 people; all to be located where there is no employment, poor public transport, inadequate services (water, sewerage, etc).
2. All of the schools in the area are full to bursting. The new high school that has been promised for 14 years, is still at least 8 years away.
3. The influx of large numbers of HNZ tenants is likely to bring crime, drive out existing residents and seriously depress existing values.
No-one at the meeting last night spoke against affordable housing, in fact I believe everyone was supportive of the concept. The decision to concentrate HNZ houses on such valuable land makes no sense what so ever. Social research world wide would also question the wisdom of putting so many in one place anywhere.
IT has been suggested that Hobsonville would be a top location for a new sports stadium to replace Eden Park. I confess that I'm not convinced this would be the best use of the land, but with the new motorway extension, deep water access for ferries and heaps of room for parking, it certainly has more credibility than 3,000 HNZ homes on the same land.
As an ex Air Force officer who has lived on this land, a member of the marine industry, and a local resident, I guess what really grips me about this stupidity, is that my wife and I have worked hard for 30 odd years to be able to live in the area and in my up market home when the government is hell bent on just giving away those priviledges.
HNZ should be in the business of providing a short term leg up to people who are desparately in need of housing, not rewarding them with mediocre houses in top areas.
